


A Supermarket is like a Battlefield

by zenonaa



Series: TogaFuka Week 2015 [6]
Category: Dangan Ronpa
Genre: F/M, Togafuka Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-08 19:15:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4316568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenonaa/pseuds/zenonaa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'As closing time approached, the prices for perishable foods decreased, and this prospect of saving money attracted not only Byakuya and Touko but a number of other customers as well.</p><p>To Byakuya, that just made the occasion more exciting, and he encapsulated it with the word ‘battlefield’ as they stopped at an aisle with ready-made meals. The pop music that played over the speakers betrayed the proposed atmosphere, too lighthearted for a battle theme and annoyingly upbeat as well, but Touko nevertheless entertained herself by listening to Byakuya speak.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Supermarket is like a Battlefield

Touko opened the door to the kitchen and the first thing that she noticed was the replica of Stonehenge made with boxes on the island counter. She hesitated, staring, only looking away when Byakuya, stood next to the counter, motioned to the boxes with utmost pride.

“I visited a variety of stores and purchased a wide range of cornflakes,” he told her.

Though she wasn’t usually one to question how his brilliant mind worked, Touko asked, “Why did you buy so many?”

“So that we could sample them all, of course,” he said, sounding like he didn’t understand why this needed explaining. He waved his hand at the boxes again and affixed, “Now we’ll know which company’s cornflakes we should buy.”

She poked a thumbnail between her teeth and nibbling on it, padded into the room. They would definitely have to go shopping together, she thought to herself. The last time that she went shopping, which also happened to be the first time since they had moved in together just a few days ago, she went by herself. Then today, she had needed to stay at work after normal hours while Byakuya got off at his usual time, and he claimed himself capable of going alone on a shopping trip and somewhat curious on the process. Why, he had said, he didn’t even need a shopping list.

Him being ‘somewhat curious’ was what should have tipped Touko off.

Byakuya folded his arms over his chest. “By the way, due to our meagre grocery allowance, for the near future we will have to eat these for several meals.”

“You spent all our grocery money on cornflakes?” Touko blurted. She widened her eyes and jerked her thumb out of her mouth.

“No,” said Byakuya, offended. “I bought other goods too. Coffee, which costs a ridiculous amount, as well as rice from the counter. Cheese, pineapple...”

“What about bread, eggs and milk?” asked Touko.

“I bought milk, obviously. For the cornflakes.”

Of course.

She offered a small smile. “Perhaps... we ought to go together.”

“Oh? Don’t you trust me?” asked Byakuya.

“I do trust you,” she said, and she wouldn’t have entered an official relationship like this with him if she didn’t. The old Touko, resigned, lonely and desperate, might have done so in order to cling onto any standards no matter how low they hung, but that Touko had since been nurtured in an environment that brought forth the woman now situated opposite Byakuya. Her features hardened. “It’s just... someone like you must not have gone on many shopping trips before now.”

“Why would I have?”

“Exactly.”

Byakuya tilted his head slightly to one side, watching her with interest. “And I suppose that you’re an expert?”

Touko was not put off by his direct way of speaking. “I know the essentials. I’ve researched it too...”

She shot him a sly smile and fidgeted with her hands.

“... among other things that couples can do.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” he said, probably just meaning the first part. “Very well, we shall go shopping together then.”

He smirked. Her grin lengthened.

Five seconds passed.

Touko glanced at the boxes of cornflakes. Byakuya turned, following her gaze.

“That’s a lot of cornflakes to get through,” she remarked.

“Hm.”

A pause.

“Naegi’s?” he suggested.

“Naegi’s,” she agreed. 

* * *

After the cornflakes incident, their budget required a bit of time to stabilise before proper grocery shopping could commence. Several boxes of cornflakes were consumed during this waiting period and Makoto found himself on the receiving end of critique.

“This rice is too soggy,” said Byakuya to the rest of the table.

Touko flipped to the next page of her recipe book, Komaru continued eating and Makoto frowned.

“I’m not much of a cook,” said Makoto, with his hand cupped around the back of his neck.

“Our mum used to prepare our meals,” Komaru piped up. Her mouth wasn’t empty and Touko pulled a face, shooting a glare at Komaru, but Komaru wasn’t looking her way and so didn’t notice.

Byakuya tasted the soft cooked egg on his rice. “No spices. The flavours are too weak, causing this meal to be overall bland. Honestly, haven’t you heard of seasoning? You didn’t even add any garnishing.”

“I didn’t know you were so keen on cooking,” said Makoto with the sort of patience that being around Byakuya called for. “I thought that sort of thing was beneath a guy like you...”

“Fukawa and I have done a lot of reading,” replied Byakuya, starting on the chicken. He gagged on the first bite.

Touko jerked her chin up and reached a hand behind Byakuya's back but he seemed to be just disgusted, not choking, so she withdrew it.

“It’s not that bad,” said Komaru, slightly alarmed and slightly amused.

“You’ve built up a tolerance to it, that’s all,” Byakuya told her.

Makoto squinted, clutching his wrist in his opposite hand. “If you don’t like what I serve, then you can just make your own food. I mean you said you’ve been studying recipes...”

Byakuya set down his chopsticks. “Correct. We’ve been to bookstores and bought a range of cookbooks.”

He didn’t say they were secondhand but Touko saw this piece of trivia flash in his eyes, and Byakuya’s lips pressed tighter together.

“We should only be joining you at a few meals for a week or so,” said Touko, focusing on Makoto. “By then, we’ll know what we want to buy and we’ll have enough money put aside to fund it. Unless you would rather not have our company...?”

She and Byakuya stared at Makoto.

“No, it’s fine,” said Makoto with a nervous smile. “I could do with some honest advice on my cooking anyway...”

Komaru was happy with the arrangement that Makoto was glad to see the end of, and he reluctantly accepted two boxes of cornflakes as payment for his hospitality.

* * *

The supermarket was within a short walking distance of the apartment complex where they all lived and so, one night, the doors slid open to let in Byakuya and Touko, and thus started their first official shopping trip together. As closing time approached, the prices for perishable foods decreased, and this prospect of saving money attracted not only Byakuya and Touko but a number of other customers as well.

To Byakuya, that just made the occasion more exciting, and he encapsulated it with the word ‘battlefield’ as they stopped at an aisle with ready-made meals. The pop music that played over the speakers betrayed the proposed atmosphere, too lighthearted for a battle theme and annoyingly upbeat as well, but Touko nevertheless entertained herself by listening to Byakuya speak.

“Many meals can be bought pre-prepared,” he remarked, examining the ready-made meals on the shelves. He tapped one of the plastic containers and read aloud, “Katsu-don.”

Touko took her fingers off the handle of the trolley and stretched them out before holding on again. “That’s true, but they aren’t tailored to an individual’s taste, are they? It might be more spicy than you would want, and you can’t be sure that it doesn’t contain certain chemicals...”

Byakuya retracted his hand from the shelf and straightened up.

“Yes, these sorts of meals share a common base, don’t they?” he mused. “My tastes aren’t that of the average plebian.”

“If I cooked the food from scratch at home,” said Touko, leaning against his arm, “I could personalise it to your... desires.”

“Fukawa, you said you constructed a shopping list.”

“What? O-Oh, yes.” Touko delved in her coat pocket for a striped piece of paper from one of the notebooks. She oriented it and said, “The first item on the list is rice.”

Byakuya nodded and surveyed the aisle with narrowed eyes, as if a section for rice would appear before him on cue.

“It’s this way,” said Touko with a soft smile. She pushed the trolley to the end of the aisle. He followed alongside her, hands tucked into his armpits.

The supermarket had an entire aisle for rice. They came in different sizes, from packs that could be comfortably held in one hand to bulk bags that called for an entire arm. Brown rice, white rice, sushi rice, mochi rice - all sorts of rice lined the shelves. Touko chose a pack of rice that cost 210 yen and dropped it into the trolley. She scribbled the price onto her list.

“How would you rate the quality of that rice?” Byakuya asked, peering into the trolley.

“It’s affordable,” said Touko.

“That’s an answer to a different question.”

Her shoulders hunched. “It’s a good compromise between cost and taste. I plan to make some curry for us tomorrow.”

Byakuya let out a sigh and turned his head to the side. “Affordable... Cost... I remember when those words carried no relevance to me.”

Touko shifted her weight.

He pushed up his glasses and said, “What’s next on the list?”

“... Chicken.”

“Right.”

The supermarket boasted a fish counter that provided a generous selection of fish. In contrast, the meat counter was more limited in its options, and Touko decided after a few minutes deliberation to buy pre-cut chicken from the shelf. To make curry, she also needed curry powder, oil, salt and vegetables. Initially, the prices didn’t seem too expensive, but as the two of them wandered around the store, working their way through the shopping list, the total cost accumulated.

“I’ll push now,” said Byakuya as he deposited a cabbage into the trolley.

“Am I too slow?” she asked. She bit on her lip.

Byakuya added a few carrots to the trolley before going over to where she was standing. Touko moved to the side so he could assume his new position at the trolley.

“I just feel that I will be faster,” he said. “What other vegetables do we need?”

She checked the list, already knowing the answer but wanting to make sure. “Onions and potatoes. I’ll go get them now.”

After she had put them into the trolley, she and Byakuya progressed further down the aisle to where there were crates of fruit. Touko winced at the prices on most of the products and wouldn’t have considered buying many if any at all had Byakuya not been so adamant on them having a healthy diet. At his insistence, apples and bananas had been included on their list and those foods joined the rest of the shopping in the trolley. She eyed a bunch of grapes but as much as her fantasy of feeding them to Byakuya appealed to her, the two had other things that needed buying.

As she wanted to plan beyond tomorrow’s dinner, Touko led Byakuya over to where the noodles were shelved.

“For the day after, I’m going to prepare yakisoba,” she said as Byakuya browsed through the packets of noodles on display.

He picked a pack off the shelf and passed it to her. “Then we’ll need these ones, hm?”

“Wheat flour noodles,” she said excitedly. “Y-Yes, that’s right, Byakuya-sama!”

Byakuya looked incredibly pleased.

Touko jogged after Byakuya as he strode quickly through the centre aisle in case the supermarket’s stock of pork had almost depleted. They returned briefly to the meat counter, taking the last ‘decent’ pork left. Then they went about buying the last few items on their list. Flour. Bread. Juice. Eggs. Milk. The trolley became more and more full and as Byakuya tried to decide on what sort of milk they should buy, Touko read through the shopping list and attempted rough calculations in her head.

“How much money will we have leftover?” he asked from behind her, his sudden proximity making her jump a little.

She tried to smooth out the creases in the shopping list by pulling at its edges.

“Not much,” she admitted.

He rested his chin onto her shoulder.

“I used to have a lot of money,” he said.

Touko felt his breath graze her ear. She remembered to breathe. “I did too but m-my family controlled my income...”

“Even though it was yours?”

“Even though it was mine,” she confirmed with a hint of resentment.

Byakuya lifted his chin off her shoulder and stepped away. He tugged at the shopping list. Touko let him take it and his brow furrowed as he read through it, calculating the total. She could remember some of the items that they had yet to buy so left him alone for a minute so she could make herself useful. Green tea was on the list and she found a box that would last them a week.

When she returned, Byakuya met her eyes and gave the list a small shake.

“So far, we have spent 4599 yen,” he announced. He spotted the box in her possession and asked, “How much is that?”

“600 yen,” she said as she placed it into the trolley.

“That brings us to 5199 yen. We don’t have much more to buy now.” He skimmed through the list. “Just tofu and then we’re done.”

“Tofu,” echoed Touko, clasping her hands together and sighing at the name.

She guided him over to the tofu, which had been organised into a neat display because there was a sale on for it. Plastic containers of different shapes and sizes sat upon five checkered tiers of shelves. Byakuya plucked a blue container off the lowest shelf and with that completed the last of their shopping.

“5299 yen,” announced Byakuya. “We’ve stayed within our budget.”

“We have,” she agreed. She paused. “Tofu is an amalgamation of our names, you know.”

“You told me that when you gave me those tofu chocolates on Valentine’s Day,” he said. They headed over to the checkout, waiting behind another customer whose shopping was in the process of being scanned.

Touko hugged herself and said, “I made them by myself... Well, Kirigiri and Asahina were there, but I did most of the work.”

He didn’t reply. The total, as Byakuya had calculated, came to 5299 yen, but they spent a bit extra on carrier bags. After they paid, they moved their shopping onto a separate table situated away from the cashier and bagged their purchases. On the way out, they put the trolley back with the others and allocated the bags of shopping between them.

She nudged her head against him once outside. “It’s cold.”

“Hm.”

Touko rubbed her hands together. The bags hanging from her elbows crackled.

“What shall we do after we’ve put the shopping away?” she asked, drawn to a mental image of blankets and steaming green tea.

“I have a book that I want to finish.”

“Oh.”

Their footsteps chattered.

A thought came to her and she smiled. She touched the tips of her index fingers together. “Are you hungry? Because... we could always make tofu...”

“You mean prepare it in a dish?”

“I mean make it with our bodies...”

Byakuya clicked his tongue. “Gross.”

But he let her press close to him for the rest of the journey.

 


End file.
